Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Iraq / Syria Regional War ( October 25 - 26 , 2014 Weekend Report ) - Syria campaign rumbles on with Assad forces making incremental progress , while US bombs ISIS position in Northeast Syria and considers new ways to devastate Syrian infrastructure ( US considers bombing pipelines in Syria ) ...... As for Iraq , the usual and customary country-wide death dealing continues ......Lebanon slowly being dragged into the fray ..... Tweets for the weekend reflect current items of note.

Move Complicates Peshmerga Plans to Join Fighters

Plans for Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to send some 150 Peshmerga fighters to the Kurdish town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab in Arabic) could be greatly complicated today, as ISIS turned some of its focus on attacking the border crossing nearest Kobani.

Kobani is being defended by various Kurdish militias which have been bringing in fighters from Turkey, and Turkey intended to help the Peshmerga make the crossing soon.

ISIS, by contrast, is getting its own reinforcements from inside Syria itself, and doesn’t have to deal with border crossings or traveling long distances to get more fighters into the Kobani area.

ISIS has been pushing toward Kobani for over a month, seizing hundreds of villages in the surrounding area and making its way to the key border town. Kobani is the last Kurdish territory west of ISIS’ caliphate, and the loss of it would mean ISIS would have an uncontested span of border with Turkey nearly to Aleppo.

Hundreds of militants were killed in security operations across Iraq on Saturday. At least two strategic towns were brought back under Iraqi or Kurdish control. Two more towns were also liberated. At least 716 people were killed and 107 were wounded. Very few security deaths were reported in these violent clashes, so the numbers are likely much higher.

The plight of Duluiya is a good example of the troubles besetting the country. Residents and tribal fighters have managed to fight Islamic State militants for months, but requests for assistance from Baghdad continue to be ignored. The residents believe this is due to the Sunni predominance in the city. They point north to Amerli, a Shi’ite town that was suffering in similar circumstances and was successfully rescued by Baghdad support, even though it is farther from the capital. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has promised to turn back the sectarian nature of the army but that could take months to accomplish. He also said in a press conference yesterday that poorly operating army units would be replaced and asked for the country’s patience.

US warplanes have been attacking oil refineries and whatnot in ISIS territory in Syria, but attacking pipelines outright would be a huge move, with analysts warning the precedent it sets would be horrible.

Strikes on oil pipelines in Syria would risk huge environment damage and massive civilian casualties across the ISIS-held territory, which would be a huge embarrassment for the US, and would also give various factions all the more excuse to attack pipelines themselves.

Economic warfare already threatens to cause significant civilian suffering, something the US seems to be comfortable with right now, but escalating it could make the problem far, far worse.

How Many Different Enemies Can US Have at Once?

After al-Qaeda lost the strategic town of Morek to the Syrian military yesterday, the Assad forces seem to have an eye on attempting to retake Aleppo, a city that’s been contested for years now, and is in virtual ruins.

They’ve been pushing the US for a long time to get involved in a war against Assad, but with the Pentagon already fighting ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, it’s hard to imagine they could add the Assad forces to their active enemies right now, even if they’re presenting that as a long-term goal.

That’s doubly true because the “moderate” rebels have next to no territory and a comparatively small combat force, meaning the US is increasingly aligning itself against materially everybody in Syria, with an eye toward installing a faction that by and large does not exist.

Chemical Weapons, Refugee Infiltrators the Latest Problems

Kurdish officials have quickly adapted to the idea that they can manage the extent of US involvement in the war against ISIS with media statements, and their success has been remarkable. After all, virtually the entire US war effort, despite being couched as an attempt to “save Iraq,” is backing Kurds in Syria or the Iraqi Kurdish fighters.

ISIS has been bragging for a long time about its chlorine gas capabilities, and a handful of reports have emerged lately of them using such attacks with some success. Yet the use of simple chlorine gas, while technical a “chemical weapon” in that it is a chemical, is an extremely primitive form of attack compared to the more advanced chemical armaments people likely associate with the term.

That’s not all, however, as Kurdish officials are also hyping the idea that refugees from Iraq and Syria, obviously the non-Kurdish ones, include “families of members of the Islamic State” who are infiltrating the refugee camps to some untoward end.

Going beyond that, Kurdish officials are also presenting the idea that Turkey remains uncooperative with their war on ISIS, rejecting claims by President Erdogan that a deal is already in place to send Iraqi Kurdish fighters into Kobani, and claiming Erdogan’s government is dragging its feet on the plan.

So far, US officials have been only too willing to throw their weight behind the Kurds, and despite maintaining that Kobani is not a “priority,” almost all US warplanes are being deployed to strike ISIS fighters threatening that town, to the exclusion of most of the rest of the region where the war is ongoing.

Kurdish Fighters Retake Village From ISIS

The ongoing battle for the Kurdish border town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab in Arabic) continues apace today, with Kurdish officials reporting that they managed to retake the village of Tel Shahir overlooking Kobani.

It’s not the first time the Kurds have retaken the hill, and it probably won’t be the last, as Kurdish leaders talk up the idea of the Kobani conflict being a war of attrition against ISIS that could last a long time.

In a way, it already has, as ISIS first moved into the region over a month ago, and has seized hundreds of villages in the conflict. Kobani hasn’t fallen as fast as many expected, but ISIS continues to pump reinforcements in, and the town is very much still contested.

The talk is still that some 150 Peshmerga fighters will eventually enter Kobani from Iraqi Kurdistan, but this doesn’t seem like a game-changer either, and rather just more of the same tit-for-tat escalation of the battle for the border town.

Officials Say They're 'Encouraged' by War So Far

Centcom officials are saying they’re increasingly “encouraged” by the way the US war against ISIS is going in Iraq and Syria, particularly with the Iraqi military’s attempts to recover after repeated defeats at the hands of ISIS throughout the year.

That said, they concede that the attempts to retake anything significant, like the major northern city of Mosul, are a long, long way off, with the Pentagon saying it would be conservatively a year before Iraq was ready to even attempt such an operation.

That makes military attempts to spin the current situation as progress even more difficult, as in practice Iraq is continuing to lose more territory than they’re gaining back from ISIS, and the admissions are that this isn’t going to change at any foreseeable point going forward.

Saying “at least a year” is, in practical terms, the same as saying they have no clue when the momentum is going to start shifting away from ISIS. Politicians want to hear that it’s going to get better, and the Pentagon seems willing to say that, so long as the timetable is vague and open-ended.